Make It Rain

Make It Rain

There is a common phrase used in business to describe someone who delivers new business to the company - a lot of the time seemingly out of nowhere, "Rain maker".

The classic use of this terms was in reference to a sales person who delivered new clients on a regular basis but often from new markets or sectors. In more recent times the terms has been applied to marketing executives or media people who can create a storm of interest in something the company is developing or selling. 

In my mind I prefer the more classical interpretation, a rain-maker is someone who can see the opportunities outside of the companies existing business operations and bring new markets and sectors to the company rather than just pillaging around in the existing ones.

New Business Development is not Sales

I want to make a bit of distinction here. I see new business development as not the same things as sales. I see sales as being activity within existing markets - selling goods and services to companies that already buy/use them. I see new business development as being the creation of new markets and entry into new sectors using the existing products, services and technologies. This to me is where the real role of the Rain-maker exists.

Making it Rain

I do often act as a Rain maker on behalf of clients. I don't really have a specific strategy, it tends to vary dependent on what the client does, but here are some of the more generic parts of my rain making strategy:

[1] Connections: My network is large and well managed by me. It means at the start of each new interaction with each client I can map out a "sphere of influence" that I might be able to create. Initially this influence is targeted at sectors and markets that are close to the existing ones.

[2] Learn something new often: What this means is to take something completely random and learn something about it. I once went to the Boat Show at the NEC in Birmingham having no personal interest in boats and not having a client in that market. I came away from the show with a lead from a boat manufacturer that led to a £40k software contract for a client. I often buy a load of magazines about subjects I know nothing about to try and learn something that I might be able to map to an existing client.

[3] What's the problem?  Ultimately its still just about problem solving. If you go to any event and talk to the companies exhibiting. Ask them what the problems are they're facing. A lot of the time it will just be a conversation but probably 1 in 10 conversations someone will say something that I think I can do something about - and that is the start of the rain making for one of my clients.

[4] The power of suggestion: One of the things I have a lot of joy with is just standing with someone after they have given me a picture of their business and sector and I just start making suggestions. "what if your company could do x ...". Quite often if I just keep making suggestions eventually the other person will say something like "Hey, if we could do that it would be awesome" - again, the rain making starts here.

[5] Rinse and repeat: You can just do it once and leave it at that. It takes some concerted effort to keep heading out to events on the basis that you can come away from nothing. In my experience its not usually the case that you end up with nothing, I nearly always have something to follow up with after a days prospecting - and if nothing else you learn a lot about the subject (Its scary how much I know about the caravan market)

The upside of getting good at rain making is that it produces a larger number of sectors for your sales people to work in and allows existing products to have more customers in general. The downside of rain making is that its an acquired skill that takes time to develop and requires persistence to make it pay out for your business on a regular basis.

I've had some good successes with this strategy, a contract in the Japanese automotive industry for a UK based clothing firm, a children's play area business for a company that made exhibition stands, a wooden housing market for a company that built boats - so I know that its lucrative and extremely profitable when its all pulled together. Every established company should have a rain maker or strategy that allows consultants to rain maker for them.